Sunday, 14 October 2012

Week In Week Out

At last week's meeting of the full council the leader of Carmarthenshire, Kevin Madge, boasted that the other 21 Welsh councils would love a report like Carmarthenshire's utopian Annual Report and Improvement Plan, and that they should take a look at how things are done in Carmarthenshire.

These lesser local authorities and the general public across Wales will get an opportunity sooner than Kev expected when BBC1 Wales airs its latest edition of Week In Week Out (Tuesday at 10.35), as the programme takes a look at the Ombudsman for Public Services' report on the case involving Trisha Breckman and Carmarthenshire County Council.

This is a report, said to be one of the most damning ever produced by the Ombudsman, that no council would want, and it puts the spotlight on how things are done by the self-proclaimed best council in Wales.

The case, which began when Mrs Breckman complained about a serious breach of planning regulations by a neighbour, is a complex one and it is clear that she and her partner received appalling treatment at the hands of the both the council and the police.

The report has been kept under lock and key in County Hall since it was delivered, although the Ombudsman requested that it should be shown to councillors within three months. The three months were up at the beginning of October, and the council asked for a further two weeks to consider it.

Viewers of BBC1 Wales may have noticed that scandals in Carmarthenshire are becoming something of a regular fixture. In the last year we have had the scandal of the Delyth Jenkins case and the saga of the Towy Community Church evangelical bowling alley.

Not that this made the slightest bit of difference, of course. The council flatly refused to take part in either programme, and had the police trail the boys from the Beeb as they made the Delyth programme.

Cneifiwr understands that the BBC has been told by County Hall that the council will sue if the programme's content does not live up to the council's own high regard for truth and accuracy.

Let's hope that nerves remain steadier than they did in the case of Jimmy Savile and Newsnight.

"the Ombudsman requested that it should be shown to councillors within three months. The three months were up at the beginning of October, and the council asked for a further two weeks to consider it."

"The Council" has asked for another two weeks to consider it before releasing it to councillors.Who is "the council" if not its elected councillors? Who are "the council" who are keeping the report away from councillors?

I don't want to get mixed up in theology, but the church is probably best described as an independent, protestant evangelical group. There are several of these in Carmarthen, with one or two way out with the birds.

I am still fighting for one of the complaints I made to be even investigated by the Council. I was hit over the head by the same care worker who went on to hit a vulnerable defenceless service user who couldn't communicate verbally some 13 months later. Despite providing the Council with a statement from a colleague who witnessed the assault on me, the Council have never investigated this assault. I have written to the Director of Social Care several times as late as this year but he refuses to investigate. Had the assault on me been dealt with appropriately and promptly it makes you wonder whether the care worker would have been in a position to assault the vulnerable person. - If there was ever a need for a public enquiry - this is it

I took it to the Police when I eventually realised that the Council were not going to deal with it but was told by them that they could only investigate within 6 months of the assault taking place. I challenged this and referred to the abuse in North Wales and how that had been investigated some 20 years later but I felt bullied into silence by the response i received.

The Police classified the assault as a common assault which then has 6 months time limit (very convenient); but clearly what they didn't tell you was that being hit over the head with something normally amounts to 'actual bodily harm' which is triable either way and there is no limit on proceeding as you quite rightly point out was the case with numerous historial crimes subject of Sir Ronald Waterhouses' report.

I would very strongly suggest that you take your complaint to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), after you make a complaint first to Dyfed Powys Police complaining that Dyfed Powys Police failed to investigate your complaint. I am very impressed by the IPCC who have upheld several appeals I have made and ordered North Wales Police to re-investigate.

Diolch - What I would like to add is the fact that I wrote to the Chief Constable of Dyfed Powys Police referring to this matter in January 2011 - I read in the Western Mail 3 days after filming the Taro 9 programme that the Chief Constable was taking early retirement.

Delyth, as an employee, Carmarthenshire County Council owed you a duty of care. Have you considered making a personal injury claim? You have 3 years from the date of injury and/or the consequences of the injury e.g. occupational stress, post traumatic stress etc.

I also wrote to the two Assistant Chief Executives of CCC referring to the assault and lack of investigation and provided them both with a copy of the witness statement form a colleague. In desperation I met with the A.M. in January 2011 and she wrote to the Chief Executive of Carmarthenshire County Council on my behalf referring to the assult on me - still no investigation. One of the reasons I failed to return to work was the fact that I didn;t feel safe as the Council hadn't even investigated an assault on me. The same care worker went on to assault a vulnerabole defenceless service user some 13 months later. The way I see it is the vulnerable people who access services of this nature don't have that choice like I did because many of them cannot communicate verbally and the service is still line managed by some of the officers who failed to investigate the assualt on me - shocking